William Azariah Munn

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William Azariah Munn (born May 17, 1864 ; died October 22, 1940 ) was a Canadian entrepreneur and historian originally from Newfoundland . In 1914 he was the first to postulate the existence of Scandinavian settlements in North America.

Life

William Munn was born in Harbor Grace on Conception Bay . His parents were Robert Stewart Munn and Elizabeth Munn, maiden name Munden. His grandfather, Azariah, had been the captain and skipper of both of the sealer steamers in the John Munn & Company fleet. This company belonged to Munn's great-uncle, whose nephew, Munn's father, was the company's heir. Munn was named after this grandfather and his father, William Munn, also a respected captain. After attending the Grammar School in Harbor Grace, Munn studied at Merchiston Castle College in Edinburgh . After graduation, he went to Montreal and got his first professional experience working for his uncle Stewart Munn. In 1893 Munn married Ethel Mildred McNabb and moved back to Harbor Grace, where he and his brother joined their father's company. This had in the meantime inherited John Munn & Company.

After the company ceased to exist as a result of the death of Robert Stewart Munn and the bank collapse in 1894, the brothers opened the import company WA Munn & Company in St. John's . They imported flour on a large scale and exported lingonberries and blueberries in return. The main product, however, was cod liver oil , for the production of which a plant was built in Harbor Grace. In 1924 the company had a stand at the British Empire Exhibition.

After William Munn had worked as an agent for Lloyd's of London, he founded his own insurance company, Newfoundland Marine Insurance, in 1911. This company should serve the insurance needs of its trading company. The successor company Munn Insurance, founded in 1949, still exists as an independent insurance broker.

William A. Munn died of a heart attack on October 22, 1940. He was buried in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Cemetery in Harbor Grace.

Create

In addition to his professional activities, Munn had a keen interest in Newfoundland history and was instrumental in founding the Newfoundland Historical Society in 1906. In his "History of Harbor Grace", published from 1933 to 1939 in the Newfoundland Quarterly, he was the first to mention in writing the legend of Sheila NaGeira, an Irish noblewoman who is said to be the great mother of the long-established Newfoundland Pike family. However, he was particularly interested in the early trips to North America and the respective landfall, especially the sagas of Erik the Red and those of the Greenlanders , handed down in manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries. The explorations in Helluland , Markland and Vinland mentioned in these sagas referred to areas whose location was already the subject of academic debate in Munn's time. Munn knew the coastal areas of northern Newfoundland and Labrador well from personal experience as a result of his fishing and trading activities. After extensive research, he suggested locating Helluland in the area of Hamilton Inlet , Markland on Cape Porcupine north of Cartwright and Vinland near L'Anse aux Meadows , Pistolet Bay and Milan Arm . In 1914 he published his findings in a pamphlet printed by St. John's Daily Telegram. Due to the small number of copies, this font was not widely used and Munn's ideas did not find a wide audience. Only the excavations by Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad , which found ruins of Scandinavian architecture in L'Anse aux Meadows, provided evidence for the plausibility of his considerations and also showed that Europeans had been to Newfoundland before John Cabot .

Works

  • Wineland Voyages. St. John's, 1914; text
  • History of Harbor Grace, published 1933-1939 in Newfoundland Quarterly

Source

This text is based on a contribution by Matthew Gerard McCarthy for the Conception Bay Museum in Harbor Grace on December 4, 2018.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Munn, William Azariah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian entrepreneur and historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Harbor Grace
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1940